Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/240

226 could. He took our advice, accepted the terms and entered into a formal contract with the sheikh, who engaged to furnish the requisite number of camels and guides, and to convoy us safely to Gaza in six days. The contract was duly signed and sealed, and was from that moment binding — so far as anything could bind these wild men of the desert.

Perhaps some may think we felt great anger and indignation at the sheikh and his comrades who cheated us so roundly. On the contrary, we thought ourselves extremely fortunate that they had not cheated us still more. We had fallen among thieves, and they acted after their kind. They might have asked us a hundred pounds too much instead of thirty — or five hundred, for that matter — and we could not have helped ourselves. We were completely in their power; to use the slang of the Stock Exchange, they had "a corner" on us, and we were but too happy to get off so easily.

After this disagreeable business it was a relief to get away from such company and go off by ourselves, like Isaac, to meditate at eventide, when, as if to add to the peace of the hour and the quiet beauty of the scene, there hung in the west a new moon. Last evening we had seen only the stars, in which we recognized the familiar constellations of our Northern Hemisphere, the only objects that are familiar on the desert or on the sea. But to-night we had the first glimmer of the young moon. We had had the full moon at Serbal, as we shall have the Paschal moon at Jerusalem; but here, midway between the two, we have only the half light of that pale and slender crescent. It seemed a singular coincidence that we should have the sign of Islam hanging over the place of the great Moslem camp.

The next morning, though we started at an early hour,